| This study examined the teaching and learning of analytic writing in response to literary and informational readings in an intermediate, undergraduate English as a Second Language (ESL) composition course. An ESL composition instructor and her two sections of an ESL composition course (N = 29) were selected to collaborate with the researcher. For a period of ten weeks observational and case study techniques were employed to describe and analyze the instructional context. Twelve of the 29 students were selected for extended analyses of their written work in order to document their development as analytic writers. Three students were selected for case studies to study their experiences in the writing course. Four types of analyses were used to study knowledge for analytic writing: (a) syntactic complexity, (b) classification of statements of content, (c) essay genre, and (d) level of abstractness. Data from classroom observations, tutorials, interviews, declarative knowledge probes, questionnaires, and essay analyses were used to describe the processes involved in teaching and learning to write analytically, and to describe change over time in the writing in response to reading. Results indicate that daily classroom interaction shapes the students' interpretations of what it means to write analytically, and of their expectations for this course. The students' personal and educational backgrounds also influence these interpretations. In this classroom, activities relating to procedural knowledge about issues of content were excluded, while the only expectations enacted in the classroom were those shared by all the agents involved in the conceptualization of this particular course. Results from the essay analyses offer limited support to the idea that the students were developing as analytic writers. Although students had internalized the genre conventions for analytic writing, there was only limited development of the interpretive skills necessary for analytic thinking and reasoning. Two major implications from this study concern (a) the importance of integrating both discourse structure and students' thinking to enable students to write analytically in a second language, and (b) the realization that learning to write analytically is a complex process that necessitates institutional support at all levels of its implementation and conceptualization. |
